


Something in the Middle

by Mireille



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Community: maleslashminis, M/M, past Xander/Anya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-18
Updated: 2009-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-21 19:50:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13748046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: What do you do after the world doesn't end?





	Something in the Middle

"You don't have to worry about anything."  
  
For a moment, Giles didn't quite realize that he wasn't alone; he'd been thinking almost the same thing himself. Everything was under control for now, everyone settled into the upper floor of this third-rate motel outside Cleveland, and all there was for him to do was to try to relax, sipping scotch from a hotel tumbler and watching as a group of grubby, happy children splashed in the puddles a day of rain had left in the parking lot. Tomorrow, or the next day, they'd have to start making plans, but today they'd all earned a bit of rest.   
  
After a second, when he realized the words had come from somewhere outside his own head, he turned to see Xander leaning against the balcony railing next to him. He smiled; he hadn't seen much of Xander since they'd checked in--they'd all been too busy catching up on their sleep.   
  
"Drink?" he offered, holding up his glass. "The bottle's on the desk, and there's another clean glass."   
  
"I'm good," Xander said, though his answering smile was weak. "How did you score a room with a mini-bar, anyway? Ours doesn't even have a coffeemaker."   
  
Giles shook his head. "There's a shop on the other side of the Burger King," he said. "I walked over there this morning." He'd found "relaxing" a difficult proposition; he was hoping that a few drinks would blur the edges of his memory enough that he could get that well-earned rest after all.  
  
"Oh." Xander turned so that he was looking over the parking lot instead of at Giles. "Anyway, like I said, I just wanted to make sure you knew you didn't have to worry about anything."   
  
"Is there anything in particular you thought I  _would_  be worried about?" Apart from what had just happened in Sunnydale, and the difficult task that lay ahead of them, of course. He'd have plenty to worry about tomorrow; just not right yet.   
  
Xander shrugged. "You know," he said. "The other night. The things you--we--said."   
  
"Ah, that," Giles said. "Do you know, I hadn't found that particularly worrying?"   
  
"Well," Xander said. "Not compared to the end of the world, I know, but I figured that now things have calmed down a little--"  
  
"Not now, either," he said. He reached up, taking Xander's chin in his hand and turning Xander's head so that they were looking at one another again. "I meant everything I said." Then, a knot of apprehension growing in his chest, he added, "But if you're looking for a way to inform me that you  _didn't_  mean it--"  
  
"No!" Xander said quickly; it was almost embarrassing how swiftly that dissolved Giles' concern. "I meant it. At least the parts that made any sense whatsoever." He smiled faintly, and Giles smiled back. True, there'd been quite a bit of their conversation, just a few days before they'd taken on the First Evil, that had been relatively incoherent. Still, the essentials had been clear enough, giving him--giving them both, he assumed--hope and a reason to survive that final battle.   
  
"That's all right, then." Giles wanted to say something else, something significant, something to mark the occasion, but instead, he was left resorting to commonplaces. Perhaps--   
  
He reached out to Xander again, resting his hand on Xander's shoulder, feeling the warmth of Xander's skin through his thin t-shirt. Xander shrugged, pulling away and looking off into the distance again.   
  
"It's not, Giles." He laughed; it sounded sharp and bitter. "You have no idea how  _not_  all right it is."  
  
"Then you  _have_  changed your mind," Giles said softly.   
  
"I haven't," Xander said. "But you're going to, probably." He shook his head. "I was kind of figuring that you already had, to be honest, and then it wouldn't have to be my fault."   
  
Giles swirled the scotch around in the bottom of his glass, finally taking another drink to steady himself before he spoke. "What did I do to give you the impression that I was no longer interested? I thought I'd made my feelings quite clear." He wouldn't have believed that he'd left Xander with much doubt about his sincerity; they'd sat out on the back steps for quite a while, making halting confessions of feelings they'd both been trying to bury for years.   
  
They'd agreed that unfortunately, this was not the time to distract themselves with a new relationship, but Giles hadn't been willing to leave it at that; he'd kissed Xander, surprised and delighted when Xander's lips parted for him and Xander's arms settled around his waist. "Once this is over," he'd promised, and Xander had nodded, flushed and dazed and looking so appealing that Giles had had to go back into the house before he lost his resolve.   
  
He couldn't see how Xander could doubt him after that. "Yeah, you did," Xander said. "And I know you meant it then, but--" Another shrug, and this time Xander looked down at his shoes. "I know better than to count on promises people make when they think the world's gonna end before they have to follow through."  
  
"I meant it then," Giles said, "and I mean it now. I've no intention of changing my mind, Xander, so if you do, then you're going to have to be man enough to tell me so." He heard the edge creeping into his voice, but decided not to try to soften it; if that  _was_  what Xander was doing, he owed Giles the courtesy of looking him in the eye and saying as much.   
  
"It's not like that," Xander said. "It's just--" He broke off, taking a deep breath and squaring his shoulders. He reached up to adjust his eye patch, then said, "Okay, then. Here goes." That was all he said for a moment, though, until Giles raised an eyebrow, and Xander cleared his throat. "So, um. The night before we really fought the First?"  
  
He fell silent again, and Giles, impatient to get this over with, said, "Yes, I do remember it." He'd spent it lying awake, trying to find a less risky solution and wishing that he hadn't given up smoking.   
  
Xander nodded. "Um," he said, suddenly reminding Giles of the schoolboy he'd been, so long ago. "I kind of had sex with Anya," he blurted, cringing once the words were out at last.   
  
That wasn't what Giles had expected to hear, and he wasn't entirely certain, at first, how to react. Xander was obviously expecting him to be angry, but-- "I'm sorry," he said quietly. If Xander and Anya had worked out their problems, then Xander must be grieving even more deeply than Giles had thought.   
  
"Yeah," Xander said quietly. "Me, too. Kind of."   
  
It seemed that no further information was forthcoming, and though he might regret it, there was something Giles needed to know before he could be sure of how to react to Xander's revelation. "If Anya had survived," he began, taking another drink of his scotch before he could make himself continue. "If she were here, would you have chosen to be with her again?"   
  
"What?" Xander asked, sounding genuinely surprised by the question. "No! I mean--okay. I love Anya. I'm pretty sure I'm always going to--she was special, you know?" Giles nodded; he understood that better than Xander perhaps realized. "But we were never going to work out. We'd have made each other miserable, in the end. And the middle. And we were doing a pretty good job of it in the beginning, now that I think about it."   
  
Giles understood  _that_ , as well. "And what happened between you that last night--"  
  
"You really think I wasn’t wishing it could’ve been with you?" Xander shook his head. "Anyway, that wasn't about... look, we were scared, we thought we were going to die, it was... comforting, kind of, to know there was somebody else in it with me. It wasn't about getting back together with her. It was just something we could do to get through the night."  
  
"Ah," Giles said, because there didn't really seem to be much else for him to say. Xander's explanation made perfect sense, and, though it was obvious that Xander expected him to be angry, he found that somehow, he wasn't. That last night before they'd gone out to face the First Evil--that had been a special set of circumstances, unlikely to ever be repeated. And if something similar did happen--though Giles fervently prayed it never did--then he and Xander might be able to find comfort in one another, instead of pushing one another away with promises of "afterward."   
  
Xander shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Is that 'ah, I understand, everything's going to be okay,' 'ah, let me see if I can find a suitably British way to tell Xander that I never want to talk to him again,' or something somewhere in the middle?"   
  
Giles chuckled. "Something in the middle," he admitted, "but much closer to the first than to the last."   
  
The smile Xander gave him in return was still faint, but hopeful. "So there's a chance you're--we're going to be okay?"   
  
"Yes," he said. "Yes, Xander, I believe that we are." He balanced his near-empty glass on the balcony railing and reached out for Xander again; this time, when he put his hand on Xander's shoulder, Xander didn't flinch away.  
  
"This is probably stupid," Xander said, letting Giles pull him closer. "I mean, we're going to have to work together, and everything."   
  
"You're quite right," Giles said, but he didn't let Xander go; he cupped Xander's cheek with his palm, stroking Xander's cheekbone with his thumb. The contact warmed him, dissolving the knots of tension in his muscles the way he'd hoped the scotch would.   
  
"And the girls are going to totally freak out, especially Buffy." Xander tilted his head slightly, leaning into Giles' touch.   
  
"I'm certain she is," he agreed, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Xander's. "But she'll adjust, as will the others."   
  
"They're going to say you're way too old for me. Or I'm way too young for you." Xander's arms settled around Giles' waist, and Giles let himself take another half step closer to Xander, close enough to feel the warmth from Xander's body.   
  
"They probably will," Giles said. "But we're both adults. The only thing that matters is whether  _we_  feel that way." He paused for a moment before adding, "Do we?"   
  
Xander shook his head quickly. "Nah. I think I could get to like dating an older guy." Then he grinned. "And I know  _you're_  not complaining about having a hot younger man of your very own, are you?"   
  
"I wouldn't have put it quite like that," Giles said.  
  
"Yeah, I know you wouldn't," Xander said, "which is why I edited it for you. You have that British thing about understatement, and I wanted to make sure you know just how lucky you are." He grinned at Giles again.   
  
At that, Giles surrendered to temptation, pressing his lips against Xander's for a moment. He didn't do more than that, waiting to gauge Xander's reaction before making any further assumptions.   
  
Xander's reaction was, to put it mildly, positive. His arms tightened around Giles' torso, and he kissed back enthusiastically, the tip of his tongue tracing over Giles' lips until they parted. Another, deeper kiss followed, and when Giles finally pulled away from him, they were both breathing a little faster. "So," Xander said after a moment, "we really are okay?"   
  
Giles felt he owed it to Xander to give that some consideration before replying, but even with that, it didn't take him long to reach his conclusion. "We really are," he agreed. "Though from now on, if you feel the need for comfort or reassurance--"  
  
"I'll come looking for you," Xander agreed, laughing. Then, with a speculative look at Giles, he said, "You know, it's possible that I'm feeling the need for a little comfort right now. Maybe."  
  
"Oh, is that so?" Giles raised an eyebrow. "Are you certain? It is a bit sudden."  
  
"Sudden?" Xander shook his head. "If you look at it the right way, I've been waiting for this since I was, like, sixteen. I wouldn't call that  _sudden_." Then he turned a little more serious. "I meant what I said that night, Giles--Rupert," he corrected himself, and Giles smiled. "I'm  _sure_. Not sure this is going to be always-and-forever, because who can be, but sure I want to give it a try, anyway. If you don't want to--right now, anyway--that's cool, but don't say no because you think  _I'm_  not ready for it."   
  
"The girls will wonder where we are," Giles said; it was a weak objection, and he knew it. The truth was, he didn't really  _have_  any objections, but he felt as though he had a duty to at least attempt to be sensible, regardless.   
  
"So they can wonder," Xander said. "If we close the drapes and lock the door, that's all they're going to be able to do, until we decide to tell them." He frowned. "We  _are_  going to tell them, right? Because I've been somebody's dirty secret before, and it kind of sucks."   
  
"Yes, of course we are," Giles said. "We'll tell them tonight at dinner, if you like."   
  
"Hm. In public, so nobody can actually strangle us. It's a good plan." He grinned. "Now, how about we go somewhere and give ourselves something to tell them  _about_?" At another raised eyebrow from Giles, he said, quickly, "Not details, oh God, no, I never ever want Dawn to know any details about my sex life. Just--you know."   
  
"Yes," Giles said, "I think I do." He picked up his glass, pouring the remnants of his drink over the balcony into the shrubbery below, and got out the keycard for his room.   
  
"Come on, then," he said, and reached for Xander's hand.

**Author's Note:**

> [me on tumblr](https://mireille719.tumblr.com)


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